Pharmacies — large and small — might lack leverage in contractual negotiations with pharmacy benefit managers, but the actual leverage pharmacies have is to expose systematic inequities and their effect on every other stakeholder. When pharmacies make that case to the masses, progress can be made in balancing the one-sided business relationship existing between giant PBMs and community pharmacies.

A federal system to track and trace prescription drugs moved a step closer to becoming reality earlier this month when the House of Representatives approved the Safeguarding America’s Pharmaceuticals Act of 2013.

Rite Aid Corp. plans to refinance $500 million in debt and, in tandem with the transaction, is projecting net earnings for its fiscal 2014 first quarter, which would mark the drug chain’s third consecutive profitable quarter.

A number of retailers and trade associations have rejected the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit over credit card companies’ swipe fees, while a group of 17 retailers have filed a new lawsuit against Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc.